There is a cell that develops in the embrio of females that help with cloning. We were talking about this in class. Its sopose to replicate ANY cell in the body. Only thing is.. to get that cell an embrio must be destroyed. Its all linked somehow, but I think cloning is just plain wrong. If cloning ever does come into play with humans.. were going to be dealing with alot of crap.

they have cloned sheep, now say a sheep will live 7 years, and u clone it in year 3 of it's life, then the clone will alone live for 5 years, because it is a clone, has the same health issues etc...

The sheep they cloned, Dolly, did die earlyer but to elaborate on this comment it wasn't "health issues" it was the length of the telomeres on the chromosomes that was the problem. Telomeres are the disposable buffers that disintegrates as we progress through life. Once our telomeres are gone, our DNA slowly disintegrates (in a nut shell ) When the sheep was cloned, the clone recieved chromosomes that were already missing a large portion of the telomeres because the cloning took place later in the sheep's life. It would have been fine had the sheep been cloned as a baby.

Oh and Darkonix, i believe the cell's u are refering to are the stem cells. And they can get these from bone marrow and from an umbilical cord now. Neither of these process require you to destroy and embrio.

The sheep they cloned, Dolly, did die earlyer but to elaborate on this comment it wasn't "health issues" it was the length of the telomeres on the chromosomes that was the problem. Telomeres are the disposable buffers that disintegrates as we progress through life. Once our telomeres are gone, our DNA slowly disintegrates (in a nut shell ) When the sheep was cloned, the clone recieved chromosomes that were already missing a large portion of the telomeres because the cloning took place later in the sheep's life. It would have been fine had the sheep been cloned as a baby.

Oh and Darkonix, i believe the cell's u are refering to are the stem cells. And they can get these from bone marrow and from an umbilical cord now. Neither of these process require you to destroy and embrio.

np ... im kinda a nerd like that... science, math, etc lol. i think the topic of cloning is really neat tho, im not sure that im for or against it. I'm all for advancments in medicine and science, and stem cells will allow us to clone not just whole humans but any necessary organs individually. It has already been done with islets of langerhan in the pancreas, which cured diabetes in the patient. It is still extremely expirimental but if we did decided to start cloning individual organs... i dunno its just mind boggling... no more waitting lists for heart transplants. I mostly suport this idea, its the cloning of entire individuals that i'm not sure i support... i just don't really see the point.

The sheep they cloned, Dolly, did die earlyer but to elaborate on this comment it wasn't "health issues" it was the length of the telomeres on the chromosomes that was the problem. Telomeres are the disposable buffers that disintegrates as we progress through life. Once our telomeres are gone, our DNA slowly disintegrates (in a nut shell ) When the sheep was cloned, the clone recieved chromosomes that were already missing a large portion of the telomeres because the cloning took place later in the sheep's life. It would have been fine had the sheep been cloned as a baby.

Oh and Darkonix, i believe the cell's u are refering to are the stem cells. And they can get these from bone marrow and from an umbilical cord now. Neither of these process require you to destroy and embrio.

wasn't saying it was health issues, was just commenting that if you clone someone with lung cancer, the clone will also have it.

You wouldn't be the same person as you are today!!!! Things that we experience triggers different thoughts and opinions!

i completely agree, personality is mostly developed by environmental factors, and since the person and the clone would not live the EXACT same lives they would be 2 different people. Which makes me wonder why anyone would even want to clone themselves?